Journeys of a Lovelorn Antichrist
by Igorina
Summary: When Adam decides that his feelings for Pepper go beyond the platonic he seeks advice from all the sources of wisdom available to a conscientious Antichrist.


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters to be found herein.

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Being a sixteen year old antichrist was not, in Adam Young's opinion, an easy task. He was quite confident that he'd managed to get a handle on the antichrist thing, having long ago deduced that the best way to deal with possessing awesome powers of creation and destruction was to avoid using them(1), but the sixteen year old part was turning out to be far more difficult. For one thing he wasn't quite sure how to go about letting Pepper know that his feelings towards her had metamorphasised from one of deep platonic admiration for her prowess at playing _Alien Death Hunt 7: for Playstation_ into something rather different.

Brian and Wensleydale hadn't been much help at all. The former tended to give advice along the lines of 'get really drunk and then tell her how you feel, then if she tells you to sod off you can just say you were plastered and didn't mean it'. The latter, whilst getting top marks in all of his GCSE's, seemed even more baffled by the subject of interpersonal relationships than Adam and had mumbled something about maybe looking at a few women's magazines for inspiration. Adam tried this, but had subsequently come away feeling even more confused than he had been before. How, after all, was he supposed to become a sensitive yet tough high flyer to whom success didn't actually matter, with the body of male model, the face of a boy band member, the eyes of a movie star and the soul of a poet – but not a depressive one – who could cook (whilst making sure that he still looked tough whilst doing it) and do DIY (but without being too macho about it) and dress stylishly (without of course being fixated with appearance).

It was for this reason therefore that Adam felt the need to widen his search for enlightenment; to access all of the information available to him. And it was thus that he found himself sitting at a table in The Ritz with two rather unlikely companions.

"So I take it that you're not going to recreate the world in such a manner that this girl starts to like you?" said the entity in dark glasses sitting to his right.

The fair-haired, rather bookish being to his left looked scandalised. "Crowley! How on earth can you suggest such a thing?"

"All right, all right. Just being facetious Aziraphale. I only said that he could, not that he actually should. Anyway, my advice, get an expensive car."

Adam was puzzled. "A car?"

"Yeah, well it's always worked for me."

It did not take a person of unusual perception to pick up on the sudden air of frostiness emanating from the angel.

"I don't think that he needs to hear about any of your sordid encounters, Crowley."

"I'm too young to drive," said Adam, hastily, feeling as though he'd just inadvertently opened up a hornets' nest of demonic/angelic relationship issues. "Besides, Pepper's an environmentalist. I don't think she'd take too kindly to me driving around in any car, let alone a big posh one."

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "And knowing this you still want to enter into a relationship with her? Why not just find somebody who isn't a yogurt knitter?"

Aziraphale sniffed. "I think she sounds like a lovely person. Maybe you could join a book club; it'll demonstrate what a nice, cultured young man you are."

"Oh please, 'join a book club' that's your solution to everything. Well, that and getting totally plastered."

"I was hardly suggesting that he do the latter, Crowley."

Adam looked on with a mixture of fascination and amusement as the two supernatural entities proceeded to launch into an argument about something that had occurred over three thousand years ago. As entertaining as the lunch was however, he still felt utterly adrift, and aside from having found out that 'ancient beings with a long standing arrangement' was pretty much synonymous with 'old married couple', was none the wiser about what to do.

After saying his goodbyes and leaving Crowley and Aziraphale to their heated debate over what the demon referred to as 'the incident with the Romans', Adam pondered his next move.

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"You should ask 'er for a quick loiter," said the short, squat being.

"Yeah. Then if you play your cards right she'll be up for a full on lurking session, or at least a good skulk," said his tall thin companion

Adam sighed. He hadn't meant to bump into the two Dukes of Hell, let alone ask them for relationship advice, but the pair of them had been so horribly and pathetically obsequious that he'd found himself confiding in them out of a sense of pity. "Well, I'll certainly keep it mind," he said, trying very hard not to notice that Hastur seemed to be surreptitiously trying to feel up Ligur.

He was really rather glad when he reached the cemetery gates.

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"How many nipples has she got laddie?"

"Erm… I don't really know," said Adam, suddenly looking slightly panicked. This was of course a lie. The tight blue top that Pepper had been wearing the previous week had given him a very good idea as to the answer. He wasn't however about to admit noticing.

"That's the question yeh want to be asking. Yeh, don't want tah find yehself consorting with the daughters of the night."

"Right," said Adam, who thought that the idea of consorting with the daughters of the night actually sounded rather exciting.

"Buy her a nice box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers," said Madam Tracy, who entered the chintz-covered sitting room carrying a tea tray. It was a rather more sensible suggestion than any of the others he'd heard so far. Yet he couldn't help but feel that Pepper might take offence at such blatantly girly presents. Maybe, he thought, he could get her a box of chocolates and a copy of _Mutant Invasion: The Director's Cut_.

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The greasy spoon cafe seemed like an odd place to discuss one's love life – or lack of one, but the four bikers did seem very eager to help.

"What you need to do right, is start going out with some other girl, then she'll be dead jealous," said Skuzz, looking rather pleased with himself.

"And that's what worked for you?" said Adam, sounding a tad doubtful.

"Well, it nearly did," said Pigbog. "It went all right till the bit when Sharon attacked Kelly with the high heeled shoe. Then neither of 'em spoke to him again."

"Apart from at the hearing," Greaser interjected.

"Yeah, that was more screaming than speaking though."

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Feeling increasingly confused he even sent a letter to the Tadfield Advertiser asking how other people had done it.

RP Tyler, in his next letter about the general degeneracy of young people today, suggested that _Anonymous from Tadfield_ join the army, as aside from the fact that it would be like national service – which was in the mind of RP Tyler almost as good as a return to public hangings – young ladies always liked a boy in uniform.

Adam thought back to Pepper's involvement in the anti-war campaign and decided against it.

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There was only really one person left to ask about the whole thing. Unfortunately Adam was pretty certain that her suggestion was going to be one he wasn't going to like. He was, of course, completely right.

"Tell her," said Anathema, as Adam helped her to paint the kitchen of Jasmine Cottage.

"Isn't there an easier way?" said Adam, voice almost pleading.

"Yes, lots of them. It's just that they don't actually tend to work."

That often seemed to be the problem with things that worked; they were so difficult to do.

For a long time(2) Adam thought about this. In the end however there was really only one thing he could do.

"Pepper," he said, stomach churning, as they waited for the half past eight bus to the Upper Tadfield Sixth Form College.

"What?" said Pepper, who seemed to be currently preoccupied with one of the games on her mobile phone.

"Pepper, doyouwantedtogotoGreasyJonsonsseventeent hbirthdaypartywithme."

"Eh?"

Adam gulped. "I… er… just wanted to know if you wanted to go to Greasy Johnson's seventeenth birthday party with me."

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "You mean like as a date or something."

He found himself fixing his eyes at the floor. "Erm… yes… I…."

"Okay."

"I mean it's fine if you don't…. Wait did you just say yes."

"Yes Adam, I just said yes. I was going to ask you but my sister said she thought you were going out with Yvonne Newell."

Adam briefly considered wreaking a terrible revenge on Pepper's younger sister, but for some reason found himself feeling rather too giddy to do anything but grin in what he'd later be informed by Brian and Wensleydale was a completely stupid and insanely happy manner.

-

(1)Though he reasoned that using them once in a while, in instances of great need, such as the time he'd forgotten to buy his mother a birthday present or the occasion on which Wensleydale had started to choke on a chicken leg, wouldn't do much harm.

(2)Well two days actually. But for a lovelorn sixteen year old this can often translate as half an eternity.


End file.
